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Superman and Time Warner Cheating YouTube?
costpernews.com — Shmuly points out that there have been over 7,500 subscribers to the SupermanReturnsDVD channel just this week. However, there are only 9 videos in the channel, and there have been less video views than actual subscribers. In other words, more “people” have subscribed to the channel than actual videos viewed.
dirtyfratboy- 406 diggs
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- kickaha, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13watch the big brand's agencies roll in and game away- without skill no less.
- diggersupreme, on 10/12/2007, -33/+10People gaming YouTube is nothing new... Its no surprize a company like Time Warner will try to cheat it while they actively try to put a stop to video sharing sites with lawsuits. Im sure Daily Motion is high on their list.
Just look at all the TV shows you can get through DailyMotion for free:
Free Futurama: http://digg.com/television/Watch_all_episodes_of_Futurama_FREE
Free South Park: http://digg.com/videos_comedy/Watch_South_Park_Series_10_Online_For_Free
and Free Family Guy: http://digg.com/videos_animation/Family_Guy_Episodes_Online_No_Download
Thats just 3 examples.... - matthwk, on 10/12/2007, -6/+19Diggersupreme- speaking of people "Gaming" user-contributed content sites, how much are you going to plug Daily Motion before you feel you're in that same crowd?
- diggersupreme, on 10/12/2007, -15/+2Matt:
Daily Motion is just simply the place with lots of TV episodes on. I'd plug any site which had this.
Same way I'll talk about good torrent search engines or other great video sharing sites. - Monolith2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The video stats aren't always accurate. Ive often seen a YouTube video dugg to the front page of digg, but when i follow the link to the video there are only a handful of views.
- Buttercup, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2i think this is really just a bug with youtube. i've seen youtube videos that have been dugg that have over 500 diggs but the video its self says it only has 200 or so views. how could it have 200 views when its been dugg over 500 times?!
edit: not to say that time warner isn't gaming. i'm sure they are cause they're ***** like that. but i'm just saying it may also be due to the youtube bug. - justoman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3From a programmers prospective, I believe they would only update their stat databases every so often to help keep load off of the server. Better to only spike it once in awhile then constantly throw everything at it.
- diggersupreme, on 10/12/2007, -33/+10People gaming YouTube is nothing new... Its no surprize a company like Time Warner will try to cheat it while they actively try to put a stop to video sharing sites with lawsuits. Im sure Daily Motion is high on their list.
- samharrelson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Wasn't Time Warner going to sue YouTube over content a few weeks back??
http://digg.com/tech_news/Time_Warner_To_Sue_YouTube
Incredible that they'd attempt to game a platform to sell more DVD's that their CEO seems to look down on.
Love the video. The amateur aspect (especially the family shouting in the middle) is great considering this is an attempt by an indy YouTuber to keep the place free of brand agencies and corporate clones who have no idea what they are doing.
This reminds me a lot of spyware people (like Zango) trying to use platforms such as MySpace and YouTube to take advantage of what they see as mindless sheep consumers.
http://digg.com/security/Zango_Myspace_partner_still_pushing_their_videos_in_Myspace
When will companies/advertisers and ad agencies recognize that we're not idiots?- kblommel, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2YouTube should remove the content citing that it infringes on Intellectual Property. That would stick it to Time Warner. Don't burn bridges in other words.
- echinatl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"When will companies/advertisers and ad agencies recognize that we're not idiots?"
When we stop acting like idiots? All we have to do to get what we want is boycott any companies product until we get it. If everyone stopped buying DRM infected music they would stop selling DRM infected music. If everyone stopped going to ***** movies, they would stop making ***** movies. The majority of people out there are mindless sheep, and they ARE idiots. There are millions of people in America, who have never been on the Internet!
- holeinthesky, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4they never will, they are still huffing their own glue.
- daxsymbiont, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"more “people” have subscribed to the channel than actual videos viewed"
if that's true either the answer to the title is yes or someone has enough time in her hands to do sth like it without personal gain.
don't discount the second, if the system isn't secure enough, a script could do it without much trying. - ABadInAlbany, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1if they were making an effort to game it, it would be easy enough to affect the number actually viewed as well. marked as inaccurate. somebody grab me my tinfoil hat!
- kirb59y, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7I'm not surprised. Superman Returns was a horrible movie.
- rebz, on 10/12/2007, -6/+5holy crap that guy was dumb. give me my three minutes back. its not "superman" cheating, its called new-age marketing. kinda like how some people in the past have been able to manipulate digg to get their pages frontpaged
- bitcloud, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2so we're gonna call "gaming the system" "marketting" now?
Social networking destroys the need for marketting.. let's call a spade a spade...
- bitcloud, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2so we're gonna call "gaming the system" "marketting" now?
- VTmruhlin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Is it totally unfeasible that people might have just subscribed to it, then not watched? You're slacking off at work, see something you like, then your boss walks in and you promptly forget about it.
"Additionally, many of the accounts subscribing to the SupermanReturnsDVD channel were created within the past week, have no favorites listed, have made no comments, have no friends, and are just linked to the SupermanReturnsDVD channel."
How many people actually USE a YouTube account. I went through the signup process just to post a comment once....it was a pain in the ass. Normally I just watch videos with no account.- Daunting, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1That hypothetical circumstance surely can't be used to claim that that small window of opportunity favored Superman Returns, within an insanely opportunistic timeframe. It was obviously rigged, by possibly the company (which is mostlikely) or some lone ranger with a nice scripting hand and a liking for a crappy movie. I'm shooting for the former, but when massive amounts of accounts are made within a short amount of time for one particular video, it is rigged. That is how youtube work. It is a dynamic, organic construct when applied correctly. That possibility just doesn't happen within the random interests of the internet.
- ctb10, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3I'm going to give this a big fat who cares? The writer of the article has waaaayyy to much time on his/her hands to be digging through youtube and figuring out who's subscribed to what.
- geoplaster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7The reason why that channel is so popular is because people think it's where they can *return* their copy of the Superman DVD.
- vertice, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Superman returns was horrible.
I'd never experienced such a collective sighing and rolling of eyes in my entire life.
I actually feel dirty just thinking about it. and not in a nice way. - hbpencil, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Quick! Let's flag all the video as use violation.
- bionicvskungfu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I am sure more people dugg this article then read/watched it.
- Xyleene, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm sure more people read/watched this article then dugg it.
- tyevind, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I wouldn't be surprised if youtube had actually explained to time warner how to cheat like this.
Really now. The youtube platform is designed for this type of thing. It's probably like 10 percent hacked.
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